MUSIC, MOVIES & TV -----tv & baalei teshuva

The halachah applies to everyone equally. The Baal teshuva quote has nothing to do with that.

Television certainly is assur. It would fall under the category of al tashken b'ahalechah avlah, which would prohibit you having it in your home, and sifrei cheshek, which would prohibit you from watching. It's really quite simple.

As far as a new BT is concerned, the Halachah applies to him as much as anyone else. If, however, he cannot fulfill all the halachos at once, then he cannot. But he must try, as do we all, to fulfill all of them all the time. What we are willing to do, and sometimes even what we are capable of doing, is a different story.

That story is the issue of Nisayon, not Halachah. You’re confusing the two. Nisayon means that what for me is perhaps an easy nisayon may for someone else be a very difficult one. And the level of righteousness and villiany that we are on, depends on our efforts, not our successes. So if lets say for me eating in McDonalds is not a Nisayon, I am not a Tzadik for not eating there but I'd be a big big avaryan if I did ( since it was so easy for me not to), for someone else, for whom McDonalds is a major Nisayon, he would be a big Tzadik for not eating there and not nearly as big an avaryan as me if he would.

But for both of us, McDonalds is assur. 100%.

It’s like let’s say mugging someone. If someone mugs someone for a nickel, for the fun of it, or if you’re a millionaire and you mug someone for a few dollars, you’re a much bigger rasha than if you no money and a family to feed, and were brought up in a criminal environment. But mugging someone is a crime in both cases.

It’s just that one is a more hideous crime and deserving of much greater punishment. Both people would be found guilty but the sentencing would be much different.

So too the halachah is equally binding on everyone --- guilty is guilty. But then there is the sentencing. How much do you get punished for your aveirah? And how much do you get rewarded for your mitzvah? How big a rasha are you for violating this halachah this time and in this place, and how big a tzadik are you for resisting?

The answer to that is, l'fum tzaarah agrah.